When it became obvious that Georgia was going to need to score some points in order to keep up with Alabama in Saturday’s SEC Championship, many folks – fans and media alike – wondered if backup quarterback JT Daniels might finally get the call to replace starter Stetson Bennett.

During a Zoom call Sunday night to preview Georgia’s upcoming appearance against Michigan in the Orange Bowl as part of the College Football Playoff, Smart said it was never a consideration.

“No, we never discussed that on the headphones last night,” Smart said. “Obviously, we have to play better in a lot of areas, but to put any part of that blame or all of that blame on Stetson, there was a lot more to it.”

That statement is at least partly true.

Georgia’s vaunted defense could even begin to contain quarterback Bryce Young, but Bennett also had his ups and downs.

The senior completed 29 of 48 passes for 340 yards and three touchdowns but threw two interceptions. One was returned by safety Jordan Battle for a 42-yard Pick-6.

“We’ve got to play better around him, we’ve got to play better on special teams and defense, really all facets of the game,” Smart said. “There were some really, really good throws last night by Stetson, so only his guys could catch the ball. We’ve got to continue to work on some of the poor decisions in a couple of throws there that were picked off.”

This was not the only question regarding Bennett.

Later, Smart was asked directly if he’d consider making Daniels the starter for the Orange Bowl.

“I’ve addressed that (quarterbacks) already,” Smart said.

After Saturday’s game Smart suggested the loss to Alabama might actually his team to refocus following its 12-0 start.

Perhaps it is.

Smart revealed Sunday that the Bulldogs held a “players meeting” where several of the team’s leaders got up to speak.

“Sometimes, you can only see that through a loss. You hope you can see it through a victory, but these guys were great today,” Smart said. “They wanted to have a player’s meeting, so a couple of guys got up and spoke on their own. They were in a really good space today.”

If anyone was moping around following Saturday’s 41-24 loss, Smart said he could not tell.

“The players had unbelievable energy, communication, talking about moving forward. A lot of them wanted to know what the schedule was going to be so they could get back to work. I look at it all the time, you have to be brutally honest with yourself at time like this,” Smart said. “You have to be willing to say who are we, what are we doing well and maybe we aren’t as good as we thought we were in some areas, where can we improve.”

On the big plays allowed by the secondary: “There were a couple of plays with miscommunication and a couple of plays we just got beat. They did it better than we did it and we didn’t get a lot of pressure. It was a combination of both, The big one early was a bust. Then a couple of other ones. We had them in man and we just got beat. When you play that kind of offense, you’ve got to win some 1-on-1 battles and we didn’t win enough of those.”

On building depth in the secondary: “It is hard to add to depth. If anything, you're trying to grow the younger players, right? We're trying to get those guys ready whether it's Javon Bullard, David Daniel, Kamari Lassiter, to grow those guys and get them better and get them to where they can be quality backups or starters. I think all three of those guys have gotten a lot better because they've gotten so many reps throughout practice and things. But they're not ready to start. They're not ahead of anybody else and in some ways, you have who you have and then you have to develop that roster and get them better.”

On the decision to play William Poole: “You know Poole has been working at corner since he's been in our place and he's really more corner by nature and covers and has got some speed. And when you watch him last night, he covered some guys really well, and then we also had some mental busts that we've got to help him with and make it simpler so he can get out there and help us. But we felt like he would give us the best chance, especially with Chris (Smith) being up in the air. Chris wasn't able to practice much last week, only took a few reps, but thankfully he was able to go in the game. He was a guy who played STAR against Tennessee, and he just didn't get many reps this past week."

On whether he was surprised with problems of the pass rush: “Surprised, I don't know if that's the right word or disappointed that we weren't able to. It's hard because after watching the tape there were times we did not get pressure but when we got pressure we got beat. We didn't finish on the quarterback, meaning he outran the guy. He's really elite at avoiding bad plays, meaning you're about to get him and he gets rid of it and it's not a sack. Or he's going down and he throws a completion on third and four off the goal line and the next thing you know, they drive down and score. We got pressure, we didn't finish and we didn't cover at a premium. And a lot of it has to do with him. Him being a good athlete and their skill guys outside beating us one-on-one. Against other teams when we didn't pressure, we didn't get exposed. When you don't pressure this guy and you don't put a body on a body, he's so accurate. And they're dynamic against zone. Their numbers are just staggering when you play zone against them. They do a great job of that. You have to find ways to get him on the ground and pressure him."

On when George Pickens will get more involved in the offense: “He worked a little more this last week, and it’s a progression that we feel like we’re comfortable with, he feels like he’s comfortable with, the doctors are comfortable with in terms of volume. Some of that’s on him from a conditioning standpoint that he continues to work on. Some of it is the ability to get the reps. You can’t catch up the reps and get everything that happens. But I thought he did a nice job last night in the role that he was in, understanding what his job was. He made a couple of plays. I don’t know how many plays he ended up playing, but he certainly is growing in that. Some of that is also missing some other guys who are talented. We were able to throw the ball vertically and a lot of them ended up being pass interferences, things like that that prevented big plays. But George is a guy that, number one he’s not one hundred percent, he’s not his old self yet. We see that from some of the numbers. But he’s getting better, he’s improving, and if he continues to work like he has, he’s going to get more opportunities.”